


Night Terrors

by Hale13



Series: Whump Bingo 2020 [14]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, Irondad, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Has Nightmares, Peter Parker Has Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump, Whump Bingo, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27003073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hale13/pseuds/Hale13
Summary: Ever since Homecoming Peter’s nightmares have been worse than ever, all he can dream about is buildings collapsing and being buried alive.  He never told Mr. Stark what really happened that night, that’s why its imperative that he never fall asleep in the mans presence.(For Bingo prompt N4 – Scared or ashamed to sleep because of their nightmares, especially around others.)
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Whump Bingo 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943986
Comments: 6
Kudos: 144





	Night Terrors

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Brief and non-graphic descriptions of nightmares and panic attacks. One line about Skip Westcott but no allusions to any no-con things.
> 
> Please take care of yourselves ❤️

Peter has had nightmares for as long as he can remember.

When he was little, they mostly consisted of his parents leaving and never coming back. He would scream and sob and wake the whole apartment and May and Ben would alternate getting up to calm him down and sit with him and commiserate with him; they had lost family too. Peter was always a smart child so he had known exactly what it meant when he was told his parents had died. He had also understood what a plane crash was when he eavesdropped on one of May and Ben’s conversations later.

His nightmares morphed to include planes and screaming and fiery explosions.

As he got older and got more used to being an orphan those dreams became less common. It took months but he finally was able to sleep through the night with no nightmares and without Aunt May slipping him some Benadryl before bed. Things got better.

Until Skip anyway. Those nightmares…

Well Peter didn’t want to think about it. He would probably always have those nightmares.

By the time he hit high school, Peter was feeling pretty well adjusted. He only had a few nightmares a month and never woke up his aunt of uncle anymore and he could usually calm down enough after a few deep breaths to get back to sleep. Then he was bitten by the spider and was sick for over a week and had nightmares involving Shelob from Lord of the Rings for a few weeks. Ben and May were both pretty bemused when he told them about those and advised that he stop watching fantasy movies and drinking soda before bed.

When Ben died it was like something out of a night terror. Peter cried and screamed and pinched himself but he could never wake up. He caught himself mumbling that ‘it’s just a dream’ over and over and over until the NYPD arrived and looked at him sadly before tossing a shock blanket over his shoulders and forcibly dragging him away from Ben. From the body.

This time May also had nightmares and they spent the first two weeks cuddled in Peter’s tiny twin bed at night to be there for each other when, inevitably, one of them would wake up in tears with adrenaline rushing and then they would move out to the couch and give up on sleep altogether.

Peter still got the Ben nightmares interspaced with the ones about the terrible things he saw as Spider-Man. But the worst ones he ever had were the ones after Toomes. Sometimes he was back and trapped under the building and unable to get free. Sometimes Mr. Stark showed up and told Peter that he was a waste of time and he couldn’t believe he ever thought Peter could be an Avenger before leaving him trapped and blasting off in the suit. Sometimes Peter would be buried alive in a plot with the rest of his family dead around him and listening to his own funeral while screaming that he was alive and ‘please! Somebody help me!’.

He didn’t tell May about any of these and he had gotten better about hiding them so she didn’t know he was having them in the first place. He no longer screamed and sobbed like he did as a child, it was easy to keep tears and hyperventilation silent.

When he started going by the Tower on Fridays to work in the workshop with Mr. Stark he just made sure to stay up the whole night if he didn’t go home, he knew that FRIDAY was both wired through every room and a terrible snitch so he would lay in bed and scroll though Reddit under his covers. Mr. Stark was never the wiser and always attributed Peter’s exhaustion the next morning to getting up before noon as a teenager.

Things got a little harder when he started spending full weekends at the Tower. Come Monday morning he would always be nodding off in the back of the black Audi Happy would drive to drop Peter off at school. It was only through sheer pigheadedness and Red Bull that Peter would make it through those days. But, like everything, this was bound to fall apart sooner rather than later.

It happened on a Saturday night; Tony, who also seemed tired, had decided to call it an early night around seven and order some pizzas. Peter, who had stayed out way too late patrolling on Thursday night and was dead on his feet at this point, had readily agreed that they were both a safety hazard and had allowed himself to be deposited on the couch in the common room with a pile of blankets, three large pizzas for himself, and all the Alien movies queued up on the massive projector Mr. Stark had built into the wall.

They had made it through the first movie and started the second when Mr. Stark had started snoring softly, his right arm across the back of the couch and over Peter’s shoulders, pulling him in close. Peter tried, damn did he try, but he was warm and full and comfortable and he always felt safest at the Tower with Mr. Stark. It made his Spidey sense go completely silent. It was a perfect storm of relaxation and Peter kept catching himself falling asleep and then jerking awake. He didn’t even make it midway through the second movie before he fully slumped into Mr. Stark’s side and fell asleep.

His dream this time was one of his regular ones, Toomes had knocked down all the support beams and Peter was trapped but, unlike real life, his arms were crushed and there was no way he could save himself. He cried and screamed his throat raw in the dream, begging for help, as the concrete crushed his thorax and started restricting his breathing.

“Peter! Pete wake up, its just a dream!” Peter jerked awake as someone shook him and flinched backward, launching himself into the wall and sticking there about six feet off the ground. His vision was a little blurry as he hyperventilated and he felt hot, silent tears leaking down his face. He ducked his head and tried to control his breathing, in four, hold seven, out eight.

“Peter?” Mr. Stark’s voice was quiet and gentle as he slowly made his way from to couch over to where Peter was still sticking to the wall. “Pete, I’m going to touch you okay? You need to tell me if you don’t want me to.” He waited for a moment for Peter to deny him before he reached out and grabbed the arm Peter had been using to tightly grip his shirt over his heart. Tony pried his fingers apart before laying his palm flat against his chest. “I want you to try to copy my breathing okay kiddo?”

Peter’s breath hitched but he did managed to give a single nod and did his best to imitate his mentor’s breathing pattern, finding odd comfort in the slightly arrhythmic beat of his heart. It took a few minutes but Peter’s breathing slowed down to slow, painful hitches and he was able to unstick from the wall and slide down to sit on the floor, knees curled up in front of his chest.

“So,” Tony started, sitting next to Peter and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “How often do you have nightmares?”

Peter’s breath caught on a sob and he curled up tighter, “Every night,” he muttered, leaning into Tony’s side. The man gave a weary sounding exhale.

“I have them too,” he told Peter in a quiet voice and Peter whipped his head up to look at the solemn expression on his hero’s face.

“You have them too?” Peter whispered a little incredulously, Tony was Iron Man, he was a superhero. The man just rolled his eyes a little fondly and gave Peter’s ear a gentle flick.

“Most of the Avengers do actually. This isn’t a job that’s really conducive to your mental health.”

Peter was floored. All of his heros had nightmares? “I thought it was just me.”

“Let me guess: you think the nightmares make you weak right? That there’s something wrong with you?” Peter didn’t answer but, then again, he didn’t need to. “This is a rough job kiddo,” Tony told him, “I’d honestly be more worried if you were doing this and you _weren’t_ having nightmares.” He paused and considered for a moment. “Have you spoken to anyone about them?”

“What, like a therapist?” Peter asked, his voice a little gravelly from his panic attack earlier.

Tony rolled his eyes a little. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it bambino, at this point pretty much all of us have been to therapy. Hell, when the… when the team was still living here I had therapists coming in at least once a week and more often if we had just come back from a particularly difficult mission. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health.”

“No no,” Peter said, immediately worried that he had offended Mr. Stark, “there’s nothing wrong with therapy, its just…,” Peter paused and squeezed his eyes shut before he took a deep breath and continued. “It’s just that May’s health insurance doesn’t even offer dental much less mental health services. We can’t afford to pay for therapy out of pocket. May wanted both of us to go after Ben but…,” Peter trailed off, cheeks heating up in shame.

Tony hummed. “Well, lucky for you, Stark Industries has an excellent insurance policy and we cover 95% of the cost per pay period. You help me out enough in the shop I really should be paying you anyway and you can put May on your plan, it won’t cost any extra out of pocket.”

Peter just gaped at him. “You can’t just do that Mr. Stark. May and I, well we don’t want to be a charity case.” Peter told him, embarrassed.

“Oh trust me kid, this isn’t charity,” Tony told him pointedly. “All of my employees, both full time and part time, get the same benefits. That’s why Stark Industries always tops the list as one of the best places to work. And,” The man continued, cutting off Peter’s protests, “you do high level, classified, work with me in a private work shop and lab and you’re smart enough to be not only a sounding board for new ideas, but you help me improve them and put them into practice.” Mr. Stark turned to fully face Peter and made unrelenting eye contact. “Peter you deserve to get paid what you’re worth.”

Peter’s eyes welled up again and he took a minute to control himself, appreciating the fact that Mr. Stark just put his arm back around him and waited patiently for him to get himself back together. “Thanks,” Peter said quietly.

“Oh this is all purely selfish I assure you,” Mr. Stark told him lightly. “I just want all your IP for myself. If you’re going to change the world its going to be with Stark Industries attached to it.” Peter let out a, slightly hysterical, sounding laugh, leaning into his mentor’s side. They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. “I’ll get Pepper too set you up on payroll and insurance tomorrow and I’ll give one of the Avengers therapists a call. They’ve heard everything so you can tell them all about Spider-Man if you want.”

“Thanks Mr. Stark,” Peter told the man, sliding his own arm behind his mentors back and giving him a brief hug.

“Now what do you say we finish this movie marathon?” Tony asked, and Peter allowed himself to be dragged back to the couch.

This time when he fell asleep he dreamed of nothing. It was the best sleep he’d had in weeks.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, mental health is very important. Please never feel like you can’t talk to someone. If any of you ever need any help or resources please always feel free to reach out - this is a safe space for everyone.
> 
> I don’t have a tumblr but join me over on Twitter @Hale1310 - I just set it up and I’m looking for some prompts to combine with these bingo prompts and for separate stories!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


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